


the price that must be payed in full

by SkyGiantz



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Identity Reveal, Peter has a long way to go, but he's trying his best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 21:26:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16227641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyGiantz/pseuds/SkyGiantz
Summary: Ken Morita can only shake his head as he watches the grainy video feed before him. These kids thought they were being sneaky, yet they forget to even check for security cameras. Ken remembers being 15, and young and reckless. Wishing nothing more than for something extraordinary to happen to him. And for Peter Parker, the term extraordinary is putting it lightly.





	the price that must be payed in full

Ken Morita can only shake his head as he watches the grainy video feed before him. These kids thought they were being _sneaky_ , yet they forget to even check for security cameras. Still, Ken could honestly say that it came as an incredible surprise to find out that one Peter Parker- a Sophomore at his school- is the elusive vigilante, Spiderman.

Ken’s seen the YouTube videos of this guy (who hasn’t?) and in particular is reminded of the shaky footage of when Spiderman was recorded holding together two halves of the Staten Island ferry. He’s had the displeasure of meeting Parker only once- when he received his third detention in a month (quite unusual for an honor’s student, no less)- and had to sit stoically behind his desk as Parker begged him not to call his Aunt.

Ken remembers Parker from that time. Completely average height and build. Perhaps a bit thin, but certainly nothing that screamed _vigilante superhero_. He vaguely remembers his file, too. All advanced classes with A’s across the board. A promising transcript by all means, which made it even stranger that such a studious student would accumulate so many detentions.

Ken pulls out his phone from his back pocket and for what is likely the fourth time that morning, opens up his YouTube app. He sighs, clicking on one of the Spiderman videos that has already presented itself in his ‘recommended for you’ section. This time, the footage is a bit clearer, and Ken can easily make out Spiderman stopping a speeding car from running into a parked school bus. Ken remembers that incident, too. The driver, an 89-year-old woman, had a heart attack behind the wheel, dying instantly. The date under the video alerts Ken that the accident was more than four months ago. He closes the YouTube app on his phone, and leans back in his chair, putting a hand over his face. Spiderman was a fairly new hero, his earliest videos dating back only eight months ago. Peter would have been just finishing up his Freshman year when Spiderman made his debut.

Peter Parker is Spiderman. The security footage proves it. Ken rewinds the video one more time and watches as Parker _crawls up the wall_ , grabbing what looks like containers of white fluid from under the cheap, removable ceiling tiles. A Ned Leeds, as Morita has come to learn, stands alert, watching for anybody that could turn down the length of the hall at any moment. Too bad the kid missed the security camera in the corner of the hall, Ken thinks.

He sighs, just glad that he happened to catch the footage before anyone else did. He logs into the school registry from his computer and in the search browser types: Leeds, Ned. He’s already looked at Leeds’ records many times before, most of which were yesterday when he discovered the security footage, and once two months ago when Leeds was caught using the Library’s computer’s during the Homecoming dance. Strange enough, Leeds, also a straight A honors student, claimed he was using the computer for _porn_. If Ken didn’t find the claim odd enough (during the dance? Really?) when they brought in the IT teacher to check for viruses and clear the browsing data, apparently no explicit websites were even accessed. Which brings the question: why lie about something like that?

Instead, what was discovered was one downloaded car manual of an Audi TTS Roadster; the very same car that Spiderman was accused of stealing, and crashing.

He scrolls down Ned’s file and notes his near perfect attendance (he only missed two days last year), club activity (Academic Decathlon AND Robotics Club), as well as his current GPA and class standing (3.92 and 14th out of 495 respectively). He scrolls down some more and sees that Leeds was recorded as present this morning, and would currently be in AP Chemistry. Next to Leed’s class schedule, Ken types into a new search browser for one: Parker, Peter.

The photo that appears of Parker is from his last year’s yearbook photo. He’s smiling at the camera dressed in a red sweater, looking bright-eyed and painfully _young_. Ken does the math, and Spiderman won’t make his first videoed appearance for another seven months. He looks at the photo of the smiling 14-year-old and tries to imagine him doing acrobatics that would put gymnasts to shame, and swinging from skyscrapers along the skyline, and finds that he _can’t_. There’s a highlighted note in Parker’s file under his medical history that indicates Parker has asthma ( _Asthma!)_ and is required to carry around an inhaler with him. There’s a doctor’s note attached, and everything. Beyond the obvious fact that a fifteen-year old is going head-to-head with some of New York’s worst gang members, this is the part Ken can’t seem to get over.

Peter Parker, ranked 5th in his class and with a 4.0 GPA, is Spiderman. Ken is not surprised to find that Parker is also a member of the Academic Decathlon (although his attendance has been poor, lately) and was also a member of the Robotics Club last year, as well. What he is surprised to find however, is the removed emergency contact of one, Benjamin Parker. Now, his only listed guardian is his Aunt, a woman known as May Parker.

There are no other notes of this Ben Parker, suddenly stricken from the records. Ken distantly wonders what happened in this downturn of a year that Ben was stricken from the records and Spiderman made his debut. Several months known entirely to only Peter and May Parker, it seems.

He never did call Parker’s Aunt that day under the promise that Parker wouldn’t be late to any more classes. And, as reluctant as he is to admit it, technically Parker hasn’t been late to any of his classes. Now, he just skips them entirely. Ken looks at Parker’s attendance record and sighs; five absences, and six partial absences last semester. There are three days in particular, all consecutive excused absences, that has Ken reaching for his phone again. He understands discretion from his time in the Military which is why he searches: **Spiderman craziest moments** , into the web browser on his cellphone instead of on his school monitored computer.

Thousands of results pop up, and Ken clicks on the first web page, reads a bit, and returns to the results page when he doesn’t immediately see what he’s looking for. Instead, he clicks under the videos section and is once again redirected to YouTube. There are several videos of Parker in his pajama suit, (as Ken likes to refer to it) which he skips over in favor of some of the more recent videos where Parker dons a suit that looks like it’s made of _iron_ and has Stark’s name written all over it.

Ken _knows_ that Stark knows Parker is Spiderman. He has to, which makes Ken feel very conflicted because on one hand, Stark _knowingly_ lets a 15-year-old jump around the city and engage in knife fights and have guns pointed at him more often than Ken frequents Starbucks. But, on the other hand, Stark also seems to have given Parker a serious, much needed upgrade.

He watches a slowed down, 30 second security camera clip of a bullet ricocheting off of Parker’s iron suit, and feels himself pale. The video has over 50,000 views, and was uploaded only two weeks ago. He has a moral duty as a principal to look out for the safety of his students. Ken just wonders if that also applies when said student can also pick him up one-handed and throw him across the room.

The next video, also not what he’s searching for, but he lets it play anyways, is a 15 second video of Spiderman swinging through rush hour traffic in Manhattan. That’s it- no crime, or villain du jour. Just a kid (because that’s exactly what Parker is. A kid.) whooping and yelling as he jumps off building’s and flies through the city. Ken doesn’t have to read the comments section to know what everyone is thinking. Even he wishes he could swing through the city like Parker, some days.

Ken remembers being 15, and young and reckless. Wishing nothing more than for something extraordinary to happen to him. And for Peter Parker, the term extraordinary is putting it lightly.

Ken considers Parker- really thinks about the kid. Parker’s a bright student, that shows interest in many lucrative fields. Parker could easily be accepted into any number of top-rated schools in the country if he so desired, but instead of playing X-box with his friends after school like most teenagers his age, he chooses to perch on rooftops and help people. That, coupled with Parker’s colorful background (no parents, a missing uncle, and a partial need-based scholarship) Ken finds it amazing that his student would even bother. If Ken himself had Parker’s abilities (and Ken doesn’t even want to _think_ about how Parker acquired them. He’s heard plenty of mutant stories- all of them equally unpleasant) he doubt’s he would be half as altruistic as Parker seems to be.

The next video plays on its own- Parker is helping an older lady cross the road. He doesn’t seem to realize someone is filming him. The video after that, Parker stops an armed robbery. The next one, a mugging. Ken watches them all, and somewhere along the way stops referring to the vigilante as Spiderman and starts referring to him as Parker.

The next video starts with people screaming, and Ken immediately sits up in his seat. The video, called: **Spiderman Spotted in D.C.** , is of Spiderman climbing the National Monument in Washington D.C. Parker is just a spec on the camera until the person recording zooms in, and then Peter, in all his pixelated glory is standing on the top of the monument, helicopter circling him. Ken holds his phone up to his nose, squinting to make out the details, because now that he knows Spiderman’s identity everything makes so much sense. Naturally, he knows what happens next, and finds that everything makes an unsettling amount of sense. Of course, Spiderman was in D.C. the same time the National Decathlon was held. Of course, it was his students in the elevator that day.

Honestly, Ken is surprised he never put two and two together before this. He rakes his fingers down his face, settling with his hands cupped around his mouth.

Ken’s great-grandfather served alongside Captain America during World War 2, and now his student is teaming up with Iron Man and the other Avengers. Hell, Parker may become an Avenger before he can even _drive_. And, isn’t that the icing on the cake? Because, for as good as Parker is doing for the community- the world- he’s still in High School. He’s still young, inexperienced and so, so vulnerable. Ken thinks again, of that day Parker (Spiderman) begged for him not to call his Aunt. Spiderman: a vigilante who would rather have a gun pointed in his face than be _grounded_.

There’s one memory in particular that plays like a loop in Ken’s mind. He remembers the newspaper headlines: **Queen Apartment Fire: One Dead, Four in Critical Condition.** The location of the fire, only several blocks from Parker’s listed residence, was the first time Spiderman was acknowledged by the media. Apparently, Spiderman was caught carrying people out of the apartment complex. Parker saved lives that day. Only because Ken researched the article instead of sleeping last night, he knows there are seven people alive who likely wouldn’t be because of Parker. But, because Ken was a serviceman before he was a principal, he knows in a way that he wishes his student never had to know, that for every life saved- every critical choice made- Parker was choosing to let someone else die. Saving lives comes at a price, because at some point, you stop thinking about the people you did save and only focus on the one’s you couldn’t. That’s a special sort of Hell that no 15-year-old should ever have to bear.

Parker may have super strength, but even Ken knows the weight of letting people die is absolutely _crushing_.

Ken sighs, hating what he’s about to do next. Picking up the telephone on his desk, he dials the room of Parker’s AP chemistry class, coincidentally the same as Leeds’, and says, “Please send down Mr. Parker for me. I need to see him immediately.”

 

 


End file.
